Business Recorder Editorial February 25, 2020

Attorney General’s resignation

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government seems to have a penchant for shooting itself in the foot. This time it was the government’s top legal officer, Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan who brought blushes to the government’s face. Arguing the case regarding the reference against Justice Qazi Faez Isa before a Supreme Court 10-member bench, (now former) Attorney General Anwar Mansoor reportedly made remarks against the judges comprising the bench that could have attracted contempt of court. The bench responded with great restraint, asking the Attorney General to place on record any evidence to substantiate the remarks he delivered on February 18, 2020, while expunging the said remarks from the record. As a result, the public does not know what exactly Anwar Mansoor delivered himself of, except for some intriguing hints in the media. Before things could go any further, Anwar tendered his resignation and submitted an unqualified apology to the Supreme Court. While he said he had resigned after criticism by the Pakistan Bar Council, the government, through the Law Ministry, distanced itself from Anwar’s remarks in court and insisted he had been asked to step down. Anwar Mansoor also insisted to the last that what he had said during the hearing was discussed with the government (implying it carried the incumbents’ imprimatur), but this was categorically denied by Law Minister Farogh Naseem. The whole fiasco once again exposed the lack of cohesion and coherence and haphazard functioning of the federal PTI government. The government has appointed Khalid Jawed Khan as Attorney General, and a notification to this effect has been issued.

There remain some unanswered questions surrounding the affair. How could the top government lawyer go so far as to call into question the integrity, standing, respect and dignity of the Supreme Court judges hearing the case with or without the government being in the know? If they were not in the know, as the Law Minister has claimed, how did Anwar Mansoor take it upon himself to transgress the limits of appropriate behaviour before the apex court? And if the government was trying to be too clever by half by calling into question the Supreme Court bench per se, are they now, through their denials, attempting damage control? In either case, the government emerges in a poor light. Even without full knowledge of the offending remarks of Mansoor Ali Khan, Pakistan People’s Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has ventured that if the reports of Anwar Mansoor Khan having relied on what he claimed were surveillance reports of the apex court judges to deliver his comments were true, the government should resign. The temptation would be to dismiss this as mere politicking on the foundations of the embarrassment the government has faced. One wonders if the interests of transparency, the right of the public to know, and indeed the respect and dignity of the Supreme Court judges would not have been better served by full disclosure. This argument rests on the long experience of lack of transparency fuelling the rumour mills and even wild conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, the government has now approached the Supreme Court bench seized of the case with a request for adjournment for three weeks from the next date of hearing, February 24, 2020, to allow the new Attorney General to have time to prepare the case afresh. How the apex court proceeds from here is neither known nor should be speculated about, but arguably Anwar Mansoor Khan’s antics have certainly not helped the government’s cause in this matter.